Non - Winter Shortages

stanthevan said:
It’s clearly a problem exacerbated by Brexit. Only those blinded by jingoism could claim otherwise.
It’s going well isn’t it?
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We've had whole discussions on the brexit thread about driver shortages being a worldwide issue but are exacerbated by brexit. The issue is whether the disruption is a price worth paying for the market correction in wages and conditions for drivers. I didn't vote for it but it's a positive thing in my view. Others will disagree.
 
Audenshaw Cherry said:
Probably caused by Covid.

Not seen any petrol queues though. Why is that?
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Yet? Who knows what the coming months will hold, for all. Seems it's going to be quite bumpy around the world in various sectors. There were petrol queues in the US earlier in the summer due to their own supply issues. The world economy is stretched thin right now.

But to answer to the obvious question - We don't have enough HGV drivers. And tanker drivers I gather are some of the most skilled / sought after. Neither does the EU have enough HGV drivers. So pinching some EU drivers doesn't really solve the issue.

It's a problem we (UK gov and private sector) could do with sorting ourselves, be it through market correction or central policy or a bit of both.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
We've had whole discussions on the brexit thread about driver shortages being a worldwide issue but are exacerbated by brexit. The issue is whether the disruption is a price worth paying for the market correction in wages and conditions for drivers. I didn't vote for it but it's a positive thing in my view. Others will disagree.
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You may think it’s positive but the RHA don’t. They are pleading with the government to give visas to EU drivers to help get us out of this mess. Truck driving is almost as unglamorous as fruit & veg picking and whatever the wages are, it’s going to be a huge task to recruit enough drivers from the UK alone.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
We've had whole discussions on the brexit thread about driver shortages being a worldwide issue but are exacerbated by brexit. The issue is whether the disruption is a price worth paying for the market correction in wages and conditions for drivers. I didn't vote for it but it's a positive thing in my view. Others will disagree.
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I'd wager IR35 changes had a huge effect on whether it was financial viable for a lot of people too.
 
stanthevan said:
You may think it’s positive but the RHA don’t. They are pleading with the government to give visas to EU drivers to help get us out of this mess. Truck driving is almost as unglamorous as fruit & veg picking and whatever the wages are, it’s going to be a huge task to recruit enough drivers from the UK alone.
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It's funny how you read the letter and only took one small part of it on board. They are asking for a temporary solution to ease the immediate problem. Longer term they want a taskforce set up to help create a sustainable homegrown solution and a reduction in our reliance on foreign labour. Sounds good.

https://www.rha.uk.net/News/News-Bl...ndustry-write-to-prime-minister-boris-johnson
 
Kudos said:
I'd wager IR35 changes had a huge effect on whether it was financial viable for a lot of people too.
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The RHA letter to Johnson (link above) sums up the reasons fairly well tbf.

Several factors have exacerbated the shortage which is now at crisis point (over 100,000) and critical supply chains are failing. Those factors include:
COVID - Many drivers returned to their country of origin during extended periods of lockdown and restricted travel. The vast majority have not yet returned.
EU exit - The uncertainty of Brexit and future rights to live and work in the UK forced many drivers to do the same. Again, the vast majority have not returned nor are they expected to.
Retiring drivers - The average age of an HGV driver is 55, with less than 1% under the age of 25. Prolonged periods of inactivity have resulted in much of this aging workforce retiring early or finding employment in other, less demanding, sectors.
Test shortage - During a typical year, 72,000 candidates train to become HGV drivers with 40,000 succeeding. The complete shutdown of vocational driving tests throughout much of last year resulted in the loss of over 30,000 test slots and only 15,000 were able to complete training successfully - a drop of 25,000 from the previous year.
IR35 - The introduction of IR35 has resulted in agency labour withdrawing their services as low-profit margin logistics businesses (typically 2-3%) cannot sustain demands for £5-£6 per hour rate increases. For clarity, we welcome legislation that ensures fair and equal tax for all. However, Government must now recognise the repercussions of this and the other issues mentioned and urgently intervene to help us to resolve the resulting crisis.
 
USCherry said:
Just want to make sure we are clear on this. The supply issues were related to a cyber attack on colonial pipeline. Once news hit, panic buying ensued which exasperated the problem for a few weeks.

This is not the same supply issues the UK are seeing now.
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Just a different trigger, the panic buying caused by news reports today is exactly the same. We'll need to see how the next few days and weeks go, hopefully it will steady out as it did there.
 
northstandmark said:
Yet? Who knows what the coming months will hold, for all. Seems it's going to be quite bumpy around the world in various sectors. There were petrol queues in the US earlier in the summer due to their own supply issues. The world economy is stretched thin right now.

But to answer to the obvious question - We don't have enough HGV drivers. And tanker drivers I gather are some of the most skilled / sought after. Neither does the EU have enough HGV drivers. So pinching some EU drivers doesn't really solve the issue.

It's a problem we (UK gov and private sector) could do with sorting ourselves, be it through market correction or central policy or a bit of both.
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I knew it would be Covid.
 
The queues would all go away if they weren't buying a subway or doing their f***ing shopping in the store............
 
SlowDownDerek said:
The RHA letter to Johnson (link above) sums up the reasons fairly well tbf.

Several factors have exacerbated the shortage which is now at crisis point (over 100,000) and critical supply chains are failing. Those factors include:
COVID - Many drivers returned to their country of origin during extended periods of lockdown and restricted travel. The vast majority have not yet returned.
EU exit - The uncertainty of Brexit and future rights to live and work in the UK forced many drivers to do the same. Again, the vast majority have not returned nor are they expected to.
Retiring drivers - The average age of an HGV driver is 55, with less than 1% under the age of 25. Prolonged periods of inactivity have resulted in much of this aging workforce retiring early or finding employment in other, less demanding, sectors.
Test shortage - During a typical year, 72,000 candidates train to become HGV drivers with 40,000 succeeding. The complete shutdown of vocational driving tests throughout much of last year resulted in the loss of over 30,000 test slots and only 15,000 were able to complete training successfully - a drop of 25,000 from the previous year.
IR35 - The introduction of IR35 has resulted in agency labour withdrawing their services as low-profit margin logistics businesses (typically 2-3%) cannot sustain demands for £5-£6 per hour rate increases. For clarity, we welcome legislation that ensures fair and equal tax for all. However, Government must now recognise the repercussions of this and the other issues mentioned and urgently intervene to help us to resolve the resulting crisis.
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And noone saw this coming.
 
stanthevan said:
I wonder what that “temporary” solution might be.
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Temporary visas to EU workers. I wonder how many lorry drivers that will yield though as pretty much all of the previously UK based EU drivers are likely to have the right to work here as it is yet they've decided to return home for whatever reason.
 
northstandmark said:
Why are you always incapable of just having a sensible discussion with me regarding Brexit? To use the 'B' word! Honestly, I know we disagree, but surely we can have conversations about it.
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Because you are unable to have a sensible discussion with me.

We have a series of problems at the moment, food shortages, fisheries, farming, among others, and now petrol but, according to the people in the Sunny Uplands, they have nothing to do with Brexit and then they pull out examples of where others are having problems too, without really relating it too our circumstances. (The US problem with petrol shortages is a good example)

Yes, other countries are having SOME issues, I agree, but those with their head in the sand, like you, will not under any circumstances accept that the majority of our problems are about Brexit with a little bit of Covid thrown in.

We seem to be the ONLY country, please prove me wrong if you can, who has ALL the issues at the moment. Surely even you can see that it has to be Brexit causing this. Covid is NOT a valid excuse although this corrupt government would have everyone believe that it is, even if they had done a good job curbing the virus, which they haven't.

So, if you want to have a serious discussion tell me why you think Brexit is going so well and how I am wrong about so much. Please do not use government spokes people to justify your points as we all know they wouldn't know the truth if it smacked them in the face, they poured orange juice all over themselves and they gave all the extra money they have earnt through Brexit and Covid, which is enormous, to their grandmother's favourite charity.
 
northstandmark said:
Just a different trigger, the panic buying caused by news reports today is exactly the same. We'll need to see how the next few days and weeks go, hopefully it will steady out as it did there.
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On one level you can compare the two but not in your original context (below). Yes it was an issue with supply, but it was temporary and the cause was known. I wouldn't apply the word "bumpy" to this example, or relate it to the world economy.

northstandmark said:
Yet? Who knows what the coming months will hold, for all. Seems it's going to be quite bumpy around the world in various sectors. There were petrol queues in the US earlier in the summer due to their own supply issues. The world economy is stretched thin right now.
Click to expand...
 
Audenshaw Cherry said:
Because you are unable to have a sensible discussion with me.

We have a series of problems at the moment, food shortages, fisheries, farming, among others, and now petrol but, according to the people in the Sunny Uplands, they have nothing to do with Brexit and then they pull out examples of where others are having problems too, without really relating it too our circumstances. (The US problem with petrol shortages is a good example)

Yes, other countries are having SOME issues, I agree, but those with their head in the sand, like you, will not under any circumstances accept that the majority of our problems are about Brexit with a little bit of Covid thrown in.

We seem to be the ONLY country, please prove me wrong if you can, who has ALL the issues at the moment. Surely even you can see that it has to be Brexit causing this. Covid is NOT a valid excuse although this corrupt government would have everyone believe that it is, even if they had done a good job curbing the virus, which they haven't.

So, if you want to have a serious discussion tell me why you think Brexit is going so well and how I am wrong about so much. Please do not use government spokes people to justify your points as we all know they wouldn't know the truth if it smacked them in the face, they poured orange juice all over themselves and they gave all the extra money they have earnt through Brexit and Covid, which is enormous, to their grandmother's favourite charity.
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It's clearly you who has trouble with looking at things objectively. We have the RHA spelling out the issues in their letter, brexit is an issue but far from the largest cause of the driver shortages. If it was you wouldn't have exactly the same problem in Ireland would you?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ire...tages-could-disrupt-supply-of-goods-1.4677172
 
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